Redeeming Memories
by LordDespoiler
Summary: For the last four years Meetra Surik had roamed the Outer Rim as a mercenary, learning things like how to fight without the Force and that alcohol was still the best way to drown memories. But when Canderous Ordo approaches her with a plan to escape the Sith blockade of Taris, she finds a familiar face that brings up memories that even she might not be able to escape.
1. Chapter 1

**AN:**

A little thing I've been considering doing for a while. I found this when I was going through my computer and figured I'd post it and see what people though. Obviously I own nothing. Keep in mind that while this will be based on the games, do not in any way expect this to be a rehash where I just tell the story of the game with an extra party member. One, that's not interesting, either to read or to write, and two, I haven't played Knights of the Old Republic in quite a while, probably going on five years. I don't really have time to replay it either, so don't expect anything to be exactly the same.

In any case, I hope you enjoy the story. Feedback is always appreciated.

* * *

Smoke and the smell of various intoxicants filled the Lower City cantina as Suri glanced around the familiar scene from her spot in the corner. It was a refuge for spacers, bounty hunters, and gangsters alike, all stranded by the Sith fleet orbiting Taris since the battle a couple of weeks ago. Many were aliens, more unwelcome than ever in the Upper City under the occupation, but some were human, mostly rich kids looking to prove something by coming down to the supposedly intimidating lower levels, paying for false papers so they could brag to their friends about imaginary exploits.

It was one of these brats that now sat across the table from her trying to get a drink with her. He'd been droning for almost a minute now despite her ignoring him. Suri found it irritating beyond words.

She finally groaned in annoyance and slammed her empty cup down to get his attention, making him flinch and stop mid-sentence. The relative silence was like a dream come true, and she savored what little she could before speaking.

"Look kiddo, let me be real clear so you can follow what I'm saying," she growled, eyes narrowing as she turned to glare at him, acknowledging his existence for the first time. "You can take your little speeder and go right back to the upper city."

"But if you'd only listen to what I have to say-"

In a way, Suri was glad that he hadn't taken the hint. That gave her some semblance of internal justification for provoking what came next. He'd earned it. Sort of. "I don't care what your last name is! You could be a Jedi for all I care." She leaned toward him. "I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: when a woman sits alone in the corner of a bar, glaring at everyone else in the room, it's because she _wants to be alone_. It does not mean she wants to be bothered by an arrogant, spoiled brat who thinks he's some kind of hot stuff just because his daddy gives him a nice, fat allowance every month."

His expression went from shock to indignation to rage in a single moment. He shot to his feet, his face glowing an intensely gratifying shade of red, even in the smoky light of the bar. "How dare you?! I'll have you know that I am the second son of the senator-"

"What you are," Suri said as she too stood, "is proving my point." She was just under average height for a woman, coming up to a little above his shoulder, her short tail of black and silver-dyed hair peaking just above that. She had never been physically imposing and her combat suit accentuated her lithe body rather than any overt muscle. She gave a predatory grin, eyes glinting angrily. "Go back to your friends at the bar," she said, nodding to the group he came in with, "and I won't have to beat it home."

Suri didn't need any of her old abilities to see his punch coming. It took her a while to get used to fighting without them, but mercenary work was a quick teacher, and she had always been a quick learner.

Sometimes she regretted what she'd become and wondered if she could've made a difference in His path, but that always ended up in a brawl and a hangover. Much like tonight, actually. And it wasn't like she was good at anything but fighting anyway. For all they preached peace, growing up as a Jedi taught few useful life skills besides how to fight and how to suppress feelings.

And she'd never been very good at the latter.

Before his fist traveled more than a few inches, her kick slammed the nobleman in his side, sprawling him against the bar among his companions. "Well, come on then."

Normally she wouldn't have tried to draw more people into a brawl, but… the Emptiness had been worse for about a week now, since around the time that Republic ship had been destroyed in orbit. It was always bad, but Suri usually managed to just live with the dull ache where her connection to the Force should've been. Now it felt like something was yanking on a raw nerve ending where she should have felt the Force. She needed a distraction.

It was really too bad for the nobles that they happened to be here tonight. Not that she particularly cared, of course.

The other patrons scattered to the edges of the room, many chuckling and settling in to watch, even placing bets on how long it would take her to deck the half-dozen interlopers. This wasn't the first time Suri picked a fight in here, but ever since her first couple of brawls, the bouncers had quietly agreed amongst themselves not to interfere in her altercations. They were certain her opponents usually deserved it for some reason or another, so as long as she didn't kill anyone, they didn't get involved. Besides, Suri helped them break things up once in a while and could hold her liquor with the best of them. She even helped a few of the bouncers sort out a few troubles of their own, free of charge. Human or not, Suri was fine in their book.

That this arrangement saved the hired muscle a lot of pain and quite a few broken bones in the process since they had an excuse not to get in her way was merely coincidental, of course.

The center of the room quickly turned into whirlwind of bodies and limbs. A quartet of humans sat another corner, the reputation of the largest ensuring their privacy. "Is that normal for this place?" Carth asked as the ruckus interrupted their conversation with Canderous. "First grenades and a shooting, and now an all-out brawl?"

The Mandalorian shrugged indifferently. "They say the only good thing you can say about the Lower City is that it's never boring. It might be predictably exciting, but never boring."

The least worldly of the group was rather more concerned than curious. "We should do something," Bastilla announced, hand twitching toward the sleeve inside her tunic where her saber was. "Even though she's clearly skilled, she's against six-to-one odds-"

"No," the final member of their group said firmly. "If she needed help, she wouldn't have deliberately thrown him into his friends to get their attention."

"You noticed." The Mandalorian was vaguely impressed. Most soldiers these days had little time for true hand-to-hand combat beyond the Mandalorians and Echani.

The last man was an enigma to him. Bastilla was a Jedi and Carth himself outranked him, and yet they seemed content to let him lead, even if they didn't realize what they were doing. Well, Onasi was, at least, and Bastilla had no choice but to follow. The would-be Jedi protested whenever she could, but she wasn't going to get back to her precious Enclave on her own, and it's a little hard to pull rank when you're isolated behind enemy lines and out-voted.

"She'll be fine. I'm not sure I would bet on myself against Suri, and I could take out those idiots without breaking a sweat. I know her, even worked with her on a few jobs," Canderous said with a grin. "We actually almost got into it once, but luckily we sorted it out before the bar exploded."

Carth snorted again in spite of himself. As much as he disliked Canderous' morality, he couldn't help but respect the other soldier. If they'd been on the same side in the war, they might've been friends. "What happened?"

"We both wanted a corner table, and Calo Nord was already sitting at the other one," the Mandalorian grinned. "I agreed to buy her three drinks if we shared and we ended up exchanging war stories instead."

"She was in the Republic Navy?"

"Suri left after the Mandalorian War." He nodded, taking another swig from his drink. "She even survived Dxun. It was interesting to hear what your side thought about fighting the Mandalorian way when that damned moon kept your Jedi magic in check."

Bastilla made a face. "It's not magic, it's just-" She felt it before she saw it, the faint twinge in the Force that preceded danger. "Blaster!"

Republic soldiers didn't survive long without learning to trust Jedi. Carth reacted without thinking, flipping out his pistols and leveling them at the brawlers before he even saw the dull, gunmetal glint in the hand of one of the nobles. "Freeze! Drop it, kid."

"Or I blow some holes in you and your buddies." Canderous had readied his own weapon in what must've been record time for something that huge. Carth shot him a sidelong glance and raised an eyebrow. "What? For brats as dumb as this you have to spell out everything for 'em." He turned back to addressing the punks as Suri took a few steps back and walked over to her table, barely breathing hard. "Now I'm sure even as stupid as you are, you all probably know who I am. You just pulled a weapon on a friend of mine when you already outnumbered her six to one, so why don't you all just scurry back to whatever hole you came from before I reconsider trying to limit the damage to the fine, upstanding establishment?"

The first brat, the one who'd been harassing her, took a half-step forward. "You can't just-"

Suri's empty cup careened off the speaker's temple with a heavy crack. He fell to the ground, out cold. "I just saved your friend's life, the forgiving woman that I am. Now scram!" She allowed herself a grin as they scurried off and sauntered over to Canderous' table where he was sitting with the strangers she'd noticed earlier. "I could have handled that, you know."

"Getting shot and then beating them down anyway isn't really handling it," the man in the dull orange jacket commented. Suri felt like she should know him from the net or something. He looked familiar somehow.

"I've had worse. Besides, that wasn't even a weapon; it was a toy." She pulled out one of her own pair of custom-built heavy pistols from her belt and admired it. "Now this… this is a weapon." Suri grinned good-naturedly at the speaker. "Though I suppose those to miniatures of yours might qualify. Barely." She glanced at the other two at the table. The girl was young, not much older than twenty standard, if that. The last man was at the back of the booth, face hidden in the shadows. "Canderous probably told you about me, but I haven't seen any of you here before."

"We're… a little new around here," the girl said. Somehow even something that simple sounded arrogant coming from her.

The Mandalorian knocked back the rest of his drink. "She's coming along if she wants. You might as well tell her the truth."

"Do you trust her?" That was Flight Jacket again.

"Trust her? Do you trust me?" Canderous chuckled at him. "She has honor. And if she wants to get off this rock, she can come with us." He crossed his arms, daring any of them to contradict him. The girl was ready to open her mouth, eyes flashing angrily.

What in the Force was Canderous talking about? Unless… Her eyes widened in realization. Risky. Very risky. Crossing the exchange typically was never healthy for one's life expectancy. But for a chance to get off this dump... "If you're stealing the _Ebon Hawk_ , I'm in. I never liked Davik anyway. Crazy old lecher. He was always trying to get me in his bed."

"I told you she was quick," Ordo said with a grin.

"This is crazy," the girl finally interrupted. Her voice was petulant and whiny, as if she thought everyone should be listening to her. "We don't even know her! I-"

"No Suri, no me. No me, no Davik. No Davik, no ship," Canderous interrupted her objection. "It's pretty simple."

Flight Jacket shrugged and looked at the man in the shadows, who nodded slowly. "That's that, then. Welcome to our little crew." He reached out to shake her hand. "Carth Onasi, Republic navy."

Republic? That meant… "You're the Jedi that Brejik was stupid enough to capture," Suri said to the slip of a girl. Wonderful. At least she looked too young to understand what her Force sense was actually seeing in Suri-or rather, not seeing.

"Bastilla Shan," the younger woman introduced herself reluctantly. "I'm not quite a knight yet, but I'm close to becoming one."

She was the one who led the assassination team that killed him. Suri somehow maintained her outward indifference, trying not to fantasize about putting a hole in the schutta sitting across from her. "So that means that you're the one who won the race and killed Brejik, right?" Suri asked as she forced her attention to the man in the shadows. "Wish I could've been there."

He laughed. "That would've made it too easy." He leaned forward into the light to shake her hand and she saw his face for the first time.

Her heart stopped. No. He was dead. It couldn't be him, here, working with the Republic.

"I'm Kylar Aellion." But it was. He had the same voice, the same angular features and dark hair. He even had the old scar on his cheek and those storm-grey eyes she knew so well after their years of…

Suri—Meetra Surik, in the depths of her mind—tried to stop herself, tried not to remember the past.

She tried to remember why she stopped herself from thinking about him. She tried to remember the path he had chosen to walk it, that it was he who ordered the atrocities on Telos and other worlds. But she couldn't—not now, as she looked upon the man she'd thought was dead, who stared back at her with unknowing eyes, as if he'd forgotten everything once between them.

"Suri?" Canderous raised an eyebrow at her. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

 _Unfreeze. Do something, or they'll become suspicious. The Jedi assassin can already sense the Emptiness._ _Act, Meetra_ , his voice echoed in her mind, not through the Force but as if from a memory. His voice was as she remembered it from years ago, firm and confident but undeniably caring.

She blinked a few times, snapping back to herself. "Fine. I'm fine," she said, reaching around for an excuse. "I… Kylar just looks like someone I knew during my navy days, that's all." The men accepted her words, but without even looking she could feel Bastilla's eyes boring into her, discreetly trying to read her thoughts to sense the truth of the words. She had, after all, admitted to knowing someone who looked like Revan.

If her mental blocks could withstand the efforts of Jedi masters when they interrogated her about Revan when they amputated her connection to the Force, they could hold up to an over-confident teenager trying to keep her efforts unnoticed. "I'm in. What's the plan?"

As the other three left, Canderous signaled for another round. His friend's eyes were still clouded, lost in thought ever since she saw Kylar's face. Suri barely spoke as they went through the details of the plan— _Suri_ , who always had a biting retort to whatever anyone said and could pick a fight over literally anything. Who could nitpick any plan to pieces, because she hated having plans in the first place.

"So…" he said as the server brought over another bottle, "you wanna tell me what that was all about? You recognized him, even though he didn't recognize you. I could see that much."

She glared at him, then threw back another glass and rested her head in her hands. It could've been the light, but he thought he saw a glint of moisture on her cheek. "Sithspawn. I guess I should give you something. I trust you not to be stupid, at least. More than I can say of that little Jedi schutta."

He raised an eyebrow. "That bad, huh?"

"All the Jedi are the same. They go on and on about peace and serenity, but when push comes to shove they only care about principles and not people," she spat. Her words were slurring. How many did she have before the brawl? "Anyone who trusts them is an idiot."

"And you're planning to help steal a ship to go to Jedi Enclave on Dantooine." Canderous just smiled through her glare.

She snorted after a moment. "I never said I wasn't one. I followed their orders during the war, didn't I?" Suri looked away from him, avoiding his eyes. "Besides, I'm not following her," she added quietly. "I'm following him."

"You know him." Another wordless glare, but she didn't contradict him. "He doesn't know you." A tear, this time, but still silence. Her face was carved out of stone for all its reaction. "Damn. What happened?"

"I _knew_ him." She fumbled for the bottle but he slid it away, ignoring her groan of protest. Suri dropped her head back into her arms. "He died at Malachor because of the blasted Jedi. I thought he did at least. Now here he is, with a different name and apparently no memories of me."

She was barely holding it together. He'd known her for more than a year and had never seen her this rattled. "You were close," Canderous observed quietly.

Suri glared at him. "Yeah, we we're frakking close. It's hard not to be when we slept together for years."

Canderous stared at her for a moment, then slid the bottle back over to her. "Damn."

She took a deep drink. "Yeah. Damn."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:**

 **This chapter isn't too long. It's partly to provide some context, partly to give background, and partly to introduce a character that simply didn't exist in my first draft but somehow came into being when I wrote the second draft. I don't really know how. I don't even know if she'll last past Taris, but she's too fun not to include.**

* * *

 **Four Years Before**

The world was small and fertile, covered in rolling grasslands that stretched as far as one could see. The picts made it seem almost idyllic, a reminder of what nature untouched by civilization could really be. Years ago, before the war, it had been a poster child for the last great wave of colonization from the galactic Core.

It reminded Meetra of Dantooine in many ways, so incredibly similar it was to that planet where she spent much of her youth.

A small, fertile, pristine jewel of a world.

A heaven that she would turn into a hell.

She turned away from the view of Malachor V on her pictscreen, back to the bridge crew of her flagship, the _Guardian_ -class battleship _Vengeful Sword_. There were too many empty seats, too many lost officers that could never be replaced. Her old Flag-Captain, Athras, an old twi'lek with a twinkling eye and a ready joke for the common crew, had died to the Mandalorian guns in the Battle of D'xun. The Executive Officer Hinoto, the bite of discipline to Athras' jovial camaraderie, fell in a boarding action at Jaga's Cluster, weeks before that.

The Army had nicknamed D'xun the Jungle of Death. To the navy, the Battle of Jaga's Cluster had been just as bad or worse. More important than the men lost had been the starships destroyed or captured. Fifteen percent of the Republic's total fleet had been wiped out in a single engagement. It was those battles-and the Council's utter hypocrisy-that was the path that had led them here, in orbit over the world of Malachor V.

As beautiful as it was, the mostly uninhabited planet had only one characteristic of note: Mandalorians considered it a cursed world, and were forbidden to step foot on it on pain of disgrace and exile. Thus, it had been the place where she, Revan, and Malak had laid their final, desperate trap. A trap that would only work once, and had to work, at the any cost.

Her fleet was the bait.

"The primary Mandalorian fleet is rounding the planetary horizon now, General." It was the sensor officer who spoke. Another junior Lieutenant who had been freshly promoted since D'xun. Meetra hadn't bothered learning her name yet. After the next few hours, either there would be plenty of time for that, or the young woman would be dead, or she would be. "We'll have weapons range in five minutes."

In any case, it didn't matter right now, just like it didn't matter when they would reach weapons range. "Order the fleet to divert all power to forward shields," she directed. "Leave weapons cold."

The communications officer hesitated looked up at her in confusion. "Ma'am? Our cannons take four minutes to reach power. If we have all power to shields-."

She just stared at him and his words stuttered to a stop. Meetra had a reputation for having a short temper. Strange that it was she and not Malak who was known for that, but then the war had affected them all differently. Meetra glanced at her new Flag-Captain Jonrick Elnaras and nodded. He was the second of the three people on the bridge who knew what was waiting for the Mandalorians on Malachor V.

He also knew the role—the _only_ role—of the ships in her fleet was to bait the entirety of the primary enemy strike force into the estimated operational range of the Mass Shadow Generator. They would only get one shot at this, after all.

"Follow the General's orders, Lieutenant." His voice was quiet, but firm. Unwavering, like old Hinoto's had been. Meetra thought they would have got along well together. "Or I'll find someone who can."

The comms officer nodded shakily. As he relayed her commands, Meetra closed her eyes and reached out toward the one presence that she could always feel at the edges of her mind, even across star systems. The dozen CAUs (Coruscant Astronomical Units) between them were only a slight obstacle to her efforts.

 _Revan. How close are you?_

She could feel the stress in his mind and caught glimpses of blasterfire and flashing lightsabers through his mind.

 _Twenty minutes from the bridge._

Too frakking long. She hissed aloud as she felt a blaster bolt graze his shoulder, only for him to dispatch the offending Mandalorian with an easy toss of his lightsaber. It took only moments for the pain in her shoulder to subside as he healed the wound.

 _We'll have enemy contact in three._ Meetra felt his frustration and anger through the link like a wave of heat that washed over her. _We always knew the timing would be tight. The fleet has to keep them in orbit until you can distract Mandalore_ _and keep him from seeing the trap._

 _If you stay that long, then you might not get out in time,_ he replied angrily.

 _If we withdraw earlier, then Mandalore will call the fleet back. He's much too smart not to recognize my fleet as bait_.

 _Suri…_

Meetra smiled softly as he used her old nickname and felt him push enough power into the link to see him manifest before her, although only she could see him. His robes already had charred holes through the edges, but he seemed no worse for wear. "We'll buy you what time we can, Revan." She reached up to brush her hand against the cheek of his projection. "But we have a duty to the Republic and to our men and women. To all the people they left back home."

Revan embraced her fiercely, a gesture she returned. "I don't want to lose you."

"Then hurry the frak up." She said into his shoulder. "You said twenty minutes, right?" He nodded. "Make me wait longer than ten, and you're buying the drinks when we get through all this." He couldn't help but laugh, the hoarse, almost manic laugh of those too familiar with the specter of death and loss.

"I'll see you on the other side, Suri. I love you." His projection leaned down. Their lips touched for a moment before it winked out of her sight.

* * *

 **Taris**

Atlee—Atlee'ira, if you really wanted to annoy her—was not happy.

In fact, she would even go so far to say as she was solidly annoyed.

"Frak all the stupid, frakking mercenaries on this dirtball." She didn't care about the looks that the other residents of Taris Lower City Apartment Block 93 thought of her muttering to herself. A crazy human woman stomping around the block probably was less strange than what they saw on a daily basis anyway.

And given that the crazy human woman just barely broke one and a half meters tall, she was probably one of the least intimidating beings that they'd ever seen around here.

Of course, the vibroblade at her belt looked well-used enough that most would-be muggers gave her a wide berth, not that they needed that warning.

Even as petite as the woman was, it was still The Atlee, after all. The first gangsters that had tried to collect 'protection money' from her clinic when she opened it almost a standard year ago had found themselves missing one limb each, but alive.

The second group had the misfortune to walk in while she was treating an injury to her drinking buddy, best friend, and perpetual headache, Suri No-I-don't-have-a-last-name-and-don't-ask-again-unless-you-want-a-hole-in-your-gut.

The one who worked the odd job with Canderous Ordo. That Suri.

Suffice to say that those gangsters were not as lucky as the first group.

It was Suri's apartment that Atlee was now stomping toward as she cursed her friend rather loudly in the middle of the apartments.

"Frak traumatized veterans and their frakking benders. Frak having to call a frakking Mandalorian hired gun to figure out that your best friend is hungover instead of getting offed by some random mob of idiot aristocrats or something." Atlee finally stopped in front of the right door and typed in her code to activate intercom. "Suri! Get your frakking ass out of bed and open the frakking door!"

No response

"I know you're in there and I know there's an intercom button by your bed, you frakking headcase!" Atlee shouted into the speaker. There was an unintelligible groan on the other side of the speaker. "I brought a plasma torch, Suri! Don't frakking test me!" There was a pause on the other end. The door hissed open. "Frakking finally."

Atlee tossed her bag on the small table in the awful excuse for a kitchen in her friend's apartment and walked into the bedroom, which was really just whatever space was behind the thin divider that kept the bed out of sight of the door. "Get out of bed, you lazy frakker! I brought you some of my great-grandma's hangover tea!" She smiled brightly at the bed-ridden form that was still desperately trying to shield its eyes from any source of light.

"Sithspit, Atlee, what are you doing here?!" Suri's muffled voice made its way through her pillow as something between a groan and a sob. "Do you know what time it is?"

Atlee narrowed her eyes. "I actually do. It's just past midday." She tossed the thermos of tea at her friend and perched herself on the back of the only chair in the apartment. "You know I've told you before: when you go on these frakking benders of yours, if I don't hear from you by midday, I'll come looking for you. And what do you frakking know?! When messaged Candy asking where you were, he said that you were out late discussing a job with him and that afterward you got more sloshed than he'd ever seen you before. Now stop staling and drink the damn tea."

Suri finally peeled the pillow of her face long enough to eye the thermos like it was a frag grenade.

"Oh come on, it's not that bad," Atlee said brightly.

"Any time that a hangover cure completely cures a headache and it doesn't sell like it's going out of style, Atlee, then there has to be something about it that's _that bad_ ," Suri muttered. Still, she downed the tea as fast as she could, partly to cure the hangover, and partly to get over the indescribably bad taste as quickly as possible. "I swear people from Batran have their taste buds removed at birth. Saying that shit is an acquired taste is like saying a rancor is a little smelly."

Atlee turned her nose up at her friend. The shadows made the contrast between her dark skin and Suri's lighter tone even more pronounced. "I'll have you know that Batran cuisine is known across the sector for its subtle flavors."

"Yeah… subtle like a Basilisk War Droid is subtle." Suri staggered to the refresher to wash the taste of the swill out of her mouth. No matter how much she complained, Atlee's tea was some kind of miracle drug. She'd never had a hangover it hadn't cured in ten minutes flat. Whether it was worth the aftertaste in your mouth for an hour was up for debate. "You know, if he ever hears you call him Candy, I'm not helping you out. You're digging that grave on your own." Suri gave Atlee a sideways glance. "Did you actually bring a plasma torch in that bag of yours?"

"I guess you'll never know, will you?" The doctor gave her a characteristically crooked grin. "Feeling better?"

"Except for wanting to burn out my taste buds."

Atlee just shrugged. "Eh. Stop whining." Her face grew more concerned than amused. "But Suri, what happened last night?" Her eyes followed Suri as she grabbed a ration bar from the cupboard.

Ah. Right. Suri managed to forget that Atlee and privacy didn't belong in the same sentence together.

"Nothing. We talked about a job. Met with the rest of the team that wanted to work with us." She tore the wrapper off the bar and took a bite, happy to replace… whatever that piss-poor excuse for tea tasted like with the rancid sawdust flavor of a surplus, past-due dehydrated nutrient chalk. Suri really wished she could afford real food, but with the blockade, that was an impossible dream at the moment.

"That's a pile of rancor shit, Suri."

"Frak off."

"Ha," Atlee barked a laugh at her. "Candy said you were more hammered than he'd ever seen you before, even worse than that time when the three of us celebrated after we stole that Sith arms shipment." She stepped forward and rammed her finger into Suri's chest. "I know you, _riekja_ ," she continued, using an old-fashioned term of endearment from her homeworld. "We've fought and bled together, and I've patched you up more times than I can frakking count. I'm your best damn friend on this galactic asshole of a planet." The doctor's eyes softened. "I frakking _care_ , Suri. So does Candy, even with that hard-ass Mandalorians-don't-have-feelings shell of his."

Suri shouldered her out of the way and started putting on her combat suit. "I don't need you to frakking care, Atlee. I never asked you to."

"Oh for Bytlana's sake, stop being such a frakking idiot!" Atlee invoked the name of her religion's Goddess. It's strange how growing up in a culture could shape things as idiosyncratic as cursing preferences. "Is it the anniversary of something horrible? Did you manage to finally realize that you deserve better than this wretched backwater? Or was it—"

"I ran into my frakking ex, alright?!" Suri interrupted angrily.

Atlee raised an eyebrow. "I thought that you didn't do meaningful relationships since the last guy died in the war?"

Suri grabbed her gun belt from the table cinched it around her waist, glaring at her friend the whole time. "The guy I ran into was the guy who I _thought_ was dead. But he has amnesia."

"Oh." That was the only guy Atlee had ever heard her talk about. Of course, being Suri, she didn't talk about him much unless she was drunk. But when she did, she got that far-away look that lovers have in all those shitty old holo-dramas on the 'net.

Yeah. Running into a long-term lover who you thought was dead but instead just doesn't remember you… that would explain the whole getting-massively-drunk thing, wouldn't it? "He's the one who gave you your necklace, wasn't he?"

Suri folded her hand around the piece in question. It wasn't really much of a necklace, really, just an unfinished gem set in a simple brass fitting with thin chain looping it around her neck.

Suri valued it above all else she owned. It was a memory of a simpler, happier time.

How long had it been since Revan gave it to her? It must be almost two decades now. They had snuck out of the Enclave to explore the old kinrath cave.

A faint smile twitched at the edges of her lips. Quite the adventure that had been.

"Thinking of the good old days?" Atlee distracted her from her reminiscing.

"Mm." Suri finished off the last of the ration bar and washed the chalky residue down with a drink of the metallic, brackish water from the 'fresher. Ugh. She couldn't wait to get off this planet. "Everything was so simple when we were younger, wasn't it?" She asked quietly.

The doctor chuckled. "I suppose so. Then again, it was also a lot less exciting back then."

"I suppose." Suri stared into the dull gem, as if willing it to do... something. But it just dangled from her fingers, spinning back and forth like a child's toy. "I just... I don't know what to do."

Her friend bit her lip, idly twirling a scalpel in her hand. It might have been intimidating if Suri hadn't become accustomed to the nervous habit months ago. Of course, to this day she'd never seen Atlee actually take out the bladed tool. "You know... most amnesia is curable."

"Most treatments involve going to the Jedi on your hands and knees and begging a mind healer to help." She replied, loathing obvious in her tone. "That will _never_ happen."

The doctor cocked her head at her friend, trying to figure out Suri's facade of constant anger. She knew it was a front for... something. Pain, maybe? "You know, you never really explained why the frak you hate them so much. Did they just drag their feet too long joining the war?"

"They're a bunch of hypocritical bastards who-" The blaster bolt cut her off when it slammed into her, and her world went white with pain.

 **A/N:**

 **Hope you enjoyed it. When there are meatier parts of the story, I'll try to put out larger chapters or multiple chapters at once, but for filler or connective material I find it easier to write a little at a time.**

 **Any feedback is appreciated. Since KOTOR is a relatively small fandom, I understand that follows/favorites numbers will be less than for larger ones, and that makes reviews all the more important for readers who want to support my continuation of this fic. If you do follow or favorite, it would be great if you could leave a review as well, even if it's as short as saying "Good job."**

 **But that's all up to you.**

 **I really appreciate the feedback I've already received for this, especially considering the first chapter was basically a 2000 word pilot.**

 **You get 1 logic point if you guess what happens after the cliff hanger. It's not that difficult. I already hinted at it, after all.**


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